Robert Crane - Alone

Since then he had jumped around, but the police always seemed to be a couple steps behind him, at least according to the news. Hundreds of witnesses reported seeing him, even just a flash in passing, and the police were overwhelmed because at the slightest hint of a noise people were calling 911 for help; as a result, instances of violent crime were up 142% (again, according to the news) and tons more were going unnoticed. As one reporter put it, “It’s a good time to get away with murder in Minneapolis because, amidst all the other bodies, who’s going to investigate one more?”

All my fault. Every last one of them.

I was still glued to the TV, watching every update, every bit of breaking news that really wasn’t breaking, every police press conference, every release of another victim’s name. I felt more powerless than at any time prior in my life, worse than any occasion I’d been locked away. When I was prisoner in my own home I never had to worry my actions would cause harm to anyone or anything – except maybe Mom’s feelings, if she had any.

I was waiting, hoping to hear that M-Squad had returned or that Wolfe had been run over by a garbage truck (maybe that would kill him) or anything – anything to break the twenty-four hour press of guilt.

And then I did.

“Breaking news,” I heard an anchorperson say for the one millionth time in the last few days. I was lying on the floor. It wasn’t as soft as the bed but I didn’t feel like I deserved the bed right now. “We go live now to Winston Haines, who is in a chopper above Southdale Mall, where Edina police have cornered the suspect in the slayings that have gripped the Twin Cities in a wave of terror.”

I stood and moved closer to the TV. The angle changed to look down on a parking lot, where a lone figure raced across the pavement. My heart stopped, along with my breath.

It was Wolfe.

I watched as he hurdled a car, running flat out from three police cruisers and a SWAT van that were behind him. Two more cruisers cut him off and boxed him in. Cops opened doors and I saw them fire right away, not even bothering to say anything. It was a smart move on their part, but I had to wonder if it would be enough.

Wolfe went down to a knee under the sheer volume of gunfire. The reporter was blathering on about civil rights but I silently cheered the cops on, hoping that they would put him down like the rabid dog he was.

And maybe it would be over. And I could get out of here. And go…anywhere else. Somewhere that I wouldn’t have to think about any of this.

The SWAT van popped open and black-suited team members swarmed toward Wolfe, who was now on all fours, and a moment of silence prevailed as the reporter shut up. They surrounded him and I hoped that maybe the bullets they had shot him with had more power than the shotgun rounds I’d seen him shrug off. They pointed their guns at him point blank, and then one of them stepped in, handcuffs at the ready, going slow, amazed that Wolfe was still alive and moving after the hail of bullets that had been thrown at him.

As he started to reach for Wolfe’s hand to place the cuffs on, I flinched away. It was an involuntary response born of the realization that something terrible was about to happen. When I blinked my eyes open a second later, it was already done. Wolfe was in motion, his claws raking through body armor, sending cops flying through the air just as he had when he assaulted the Directorate.

They didn’t shift the camera away from the scene, which surprised me, especially when the blood started to flow. Wolfe swept through the SWAT team in less than ten seconds, and their Kevlar vests and riot helmets did nothing to stop his slashes and punches.

When he was finished with the SWAT team, he started on the cops from the cars that had surrounded him. The first few kept shooting, dodging him in futile efforts to escape his grasp. He used his teeth when he got hold of them. The last few ran, each in a different direction, and the camera followed him as he bounded after them. I didn’t watch nature programs very often, but I’d seen lions take down wounded gazelles, and it was disgusting to watch.

The reporter provided commentary on the horrors of what we were seeing as Wolfe finished the last police officer with a rough decapitation, holding the man’s head up in the air, facing toward the helicopter. He then pointed right at the camera, and it zoomed in to the point where every detail of his horrible face was visible, his teeth, his black eyes and even the blood dripping from his claws as he pointed.

At me. I could feel it. He was pointing at me. He hoped I was watching. Maybe he knew I was watching.

He mouthed words. “We don’t know quite what he’s saying…” The reporter’s voice was sheer astonishment. But he was wrong. I knew exactly what he was saying. And I didn’t even have to be that good at reading lips to figure it out; just had to have heard the repetitive taunting from him, with that same sadistic look, the one that I knew contained not one ounce of insincerity.

“Little doll…come out and play.”

Wolfe bolted into the mall at the approach of another half dozen cop cars; probably not because he couldn’t take them all out and then some, but because he had other things on his agenda. The news reported later that he’d cut his way through the patrons of the stores, leaving another thirty or so dead, a few others wounded before he bolted out an exit and disappeared.

At this point I was ill enough that I flipped off the TV. Watching wasn’t helping. A reminder that I’d had a hand in the deaths of another sixty or more people, people who had families, parents, kids – that didn’t help me at all. It didn’t help me want to keep my promise to Zack, anyway.

I stared at the stainless steel walls for the next hour. I resolved not the smash the TV to pieces, no matter how much I wanted to vent my frustration. I went to the bathroom and took a long, hot shower, but not as long as I wanted because I kept thinking about all the people dead right now that wouldn’t ever again get to experience the simple pleasure of something as basic as a hot shower on a cold day. Or shopping malls. Or theaters…or anything that Zack had listed off. Ever again.

Or a hug from someone who loved them.

I had been ready to turn off the water and get out when I started shaking with emotion at that thought. I heard someone say once that it wasn’t possible to miss what you never had. But if that was true, why did I want someone to love me, to hold me, just once?

It took me almost twenty minutes to compose myself, and when I stepped out my dinner was waiting for me, along with an unpleasant surprise.

“I brought your food,” Kurt Hannegan said with a sneer. “No one else wanted anything to do with you.” He had been almost to the door to leave and had turned back just to toss the shot at me.

“I’m not hungry.”

“I guess it’s hard to work up an appetite when all you do is sit by while people die because of you.” He paused at the door for a beat, then turned to knock on it so the guard would let him out.

“Wait,” I called to him. My voice must have sounded as lifeless to him as it did to me, because he listened.

“What?” The air of impatience surrounded him as if, insult now delivered, he couldn’t wait to get away from me.

“I don’t want anybody to die,” I said in a voice that sounded smaller to me than I could have imagined when I formed the words.

“It’s a little late for that now,” he snarled. “Hell, it was too late the day after you goaded Old Man Winter into sending us back to your house.”

“I need your help,” I said to him.

He laughed. “You’ve had my help before and all it got was a bunch of my buddies dead—”